Ordinary Miracle.  Sounds oxymoronic, doesn’t it?  How could something ordinary possibly be miraculous at the same time?  I tend to think of a miracle as a really big deal.  You know, like that moment when your team has just won the Superbowl!  Everyone’s screaming, coaches are getting bull-rushed with Gatorade, confetti’s falling, fans are rushing the field, and fireworks are going off.  I have no idea if they shoot off fireworks at the end of the Superbowl or not, ha!  Either way, you get my point.  Somewhere along the way, I decided that miracles weren’t quiet moments.  I have no idea where that comes from, because face it—God shows up in quiet moments too.

I’ve defined an ordinary miracle as God showing up in a BIG way in the midst of something we consider routine.  For example: the sun rising each morning and I wake up, the stars coming out at night, drops of water fall from the sky called rain, taking 64 to 95 at rush hour on a daily basis and not getting into a wreck, etc.  As Sarah McLachlan sings, “It’s not that unusual when everything is beautiful, it’s just another ordinary miracle today.”

Today, my ordinary miracle happened in the midst of my work day.  I had already attended our Department Meeting, returned texts that’d come in while we were meeting, and created structure in the midst of a very chaotic desk.  I had also already been to visit with a colleague about some non-work stuff, attended the End of the Year Cook-Out with my fellow faculty and staff members, and was now settling in for a long, quiet afternoon.

I was going through applications, chatting with co-workers, live streaming 106.9 The Light, and trying to return e-mails and voice messages.  Everything about the moment screamed “routine”.  I sat there praying over some things that I know will need my attention sooner, rather than later when my phone started buzzing.  I tend to know who is texting me before I open it, but this time—it was from that colleague I had been to visit earlier.  She and I had done some brain picking, heart sharing and finished our conversation by laughing and agreeing that, sometimes, we “just wish God would send a memo!”  Well, I think her text message was my memo today.

Her text mentioned something very specific that I had just been praying about; something we hadn’t even talked about earlier.  There’s no way she could have possibly known what I was praying for in that moment.  Yet, she managed to use the very words in her text that I had in my prayer.  Her text used the very phrase that my heart had just uttered in question to God!

In that seemingly routine, quiet moment—God showed up in a really big way!  I love when that happens!  We exchanged a couple more texts and I sat there knowing that I had just gotten my answer.  She ended our “conversation” by saying: I still wish He would send memos! Lol!!    I thought: I think He just did.  No one rushed the field, I didn’t get drenched in Gatorade but in that moment– clarity came.

God’s going to do whatever it takes to speak to our hearts.  Sometimes, it’s in the confetti falling, fireworks bursting kind of moment.  Sometimes, He just gently uses something ordinary to pull off the miracle.  Either way, we need to be sure that we’re keeping our hearts in a position to hear Him when He speaks—regardless of the volume.